Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1887-06-26

Though man possesses an almost IN
limited amount of facts, yet if they have
not reached his heart and awakened his
spirit, he failed to acquire the true aim of
education. knowledge elevates mankind
to the dignity of his creation, making his
intellectually approach near to the great
| likeness which he represents, causing him
to be worthy of the great stamp of the
image of the Infinite One. For what is
man without knowledge? nothing but a
mere mechanical structure performing the
natural functions of animated nature. He
is placed here on this earth like wanderer
in an inhospitable desert where the work
ings and issues of nature are very imper-
| fectly known, where he is in doubt as to
his origin and where he will go when life's
| journey is over, but reveal to him true
knowledge and you will reveal to him a
creator, father and friend and let in a
ray of the most cheering light on his dark
ened mind, giving him the power as he
wanders through beautiful fields of litera-
ture, of science and philosophy to delve
deep down in the recesses of knowledge
and bring to light glowing and magnificent
truths that have been hid for ages past in
mysterious darkness, hidden as deep down
in the great ocean of knowledge as the
sands of the ocean bed are beneath the
white capped waves, and also giving him
the power to Intellectually ascend far above
the may clouds in the great labrynth of
space where he can hear the feeble music
of the spheres, on and up to where Lord
Rose discovered eighteen millions of new
worlds, on and up to where the quiet stars
are spread over infinite space like islands
that slumber upon the ocean, on and up
until the human mind is overwhelmed by
the grandure of the solar system and the
beauties of the sweet influence of the seven
stars of the pleiades, and then his mind
returning from its far off wandering like
the tired dove TO the ark. it brings to him
evidence of wonderous import that although
he has gazed upon great wonders and
beauties, yet he has but caught
a glimpse of infinite knowledge and wis
dom. 1t has ever been the men whose
spirits have been awakened by knowledge,
causing them to believe more than they
knew, who have stood in the vanguard Of
the army of progress, and lead on in the
march of civilization.
Columbus, spurred by the courtiers of
Genoa, repulsed on every hand, deemed
crazed enthusiast, as he stood on the old
European shore and gazed out over a
wild waste of wildly tossing waves, beheld
in Imagination the rock-bound shore of a
new world, and then after kneeling at the
feet of Queen Isabella, saying, believe
more than know, he rose up with pecu-
liar strength and power of fortitude and
courage and breasted the storms and perils |
of the trackless ocean, and in a few days
stepped upon vast unknown continent, its |
discoverer. Calico, as he nightly lay gaz-
ing at the midnight stars, conceived the
science proved him to be right.
Morse, guided by the same influence, in
vented the electric telegraph, and Cyrus
Fields knowledge enabled him to make
he coral caves of the ocean one vast whis-
9ering gallery, connecting the two contin-
,nts. Yes, it has ever been the men who
knowledge, awakened spirits, re-
yardless of the number of facts required to
awaken it, that have made the grandest
strides in knowledge, in science and in
civilization. | care not for growth
n age when l contemplate
he possibilities and the capacity
If the human mind. Euclid is in
he brain of every savage The Greek and
Hebrew alphbet, Beethoven's symphonies
md raphael dreams all lie dormant in the
)rain of that boy we call in scorn the Arab
If the street All, we are in domain :
where there is no aristocracy, where the
nightiest thoughts Of Newton's lordly
,rain. when uttered in simple language,
becomes the heritage of the humblest
mind
1t is held that the lives of the men that
i've ON the page of history contradicts the
popular thought that the inherent powers
If the mind are necessarily dependent on
he age of his physical organism.
1t is true that mind, brain, nerves and /,
he physical organism must, in general,
each a certain stage of maturity before we {
AN behold the strangest manifestations Of
he human mind Yet 1t so often disre
,ard those limits that We can safely say,
nd truthfully too, that neither growth or
ge has control over the mind. The illus !
rious Pascal, at the age Of twelve, aston {
shed the mathematicisns of his day, and &
t the age of fifteen composed treatise on I
onic sections, and that great oriental {
cholar, Sir William Jones, wrote a tragedy '
t the age Of twelve. /
John Milton transacted psalms into me
er at the age Of fifteen, and that s
French philosoph Gsssen-
i, declai lined sermons at the !
&c of four, begun the study Of astronomy
{ the age of seven and at nineteen WIS q
crowned teacher in philosophy. L
Thomas Campbell's Pleasures Of Hope
ppeared when he was but twenty two, snd
William Cullen Bryant won a world wide q